MovieChat Forums > The Nun's Story (1959) Discussion > Was the sanitarium stabbing ever in the ...

Was the sanitarium stabbing ever in the film?

posted 15 years ago by sandfleas2008
17 replies | jump to latest

Or did Hulme just write it so well that I think I saw it, lol? This is the scene where Sister Luke, coming to relieve the sister in the tub room one night, stops to gaze at the beautiful stars for a moment, so as to be exactly on time. As she enters the tub room it is eerily quiet, and for good reason. The sister, seated at her little desk, is slumped over it with a very large knife protruding from her back. Sister Luke rushes over to her as all the inmates watch in utter silence, and when she checks the pulse of the sister she finds she is still quite warm (& supple)--meaning she had been dead a fairly short time. Sister Luke adds this to her list of things to feel quilty about--maybe if her pride in punctuality hadn't slowed her down, she might have prevented it...

Apparently one of the tub inmates had, over time, worked a small hole in the canvas cover of his tub into a larger one with his toe, eventually getting enough of his foot into it on that fateful night to rip the cover sufficiently to get out of the tub & commit the murder. Don't remember anymore what the explanation about where the knife came from was, but the insane are often frightenly crafty...

The process of getting there is the quality of being there

[–] Stellaaaa 15 years ago

No, that scene was not in the film. We only see the room with the baths once.

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[–] Molly-31 15 years ago

I was waiting for that scene and very surprised when they didn't have it.

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[–] princesskf 15 years ago

The scene does exist on film, but not always on the edited versions shown channels such as TCM.

[–] Molly-31 15 years ago

This is the first I've heard that TCM shows edited versions of anything. They've been lying to us all these years?

I'm all right, I'm alllll right!

[–] moviemusicfan 15 years ago

The scene does exist on film, but not always on the edited versions shown channels such as TCM.

I saw the movie multiple times in its initial 1959 release, and I can't remember ever seeing that scene. Of course, that was half a century ago. But I have the DVD now, and the scene isn't there. Can you tell us where you saw the scene--in a movie theater, on television, on VHS or Laserdisk or DVD?

[–] todd1952-1 15 years ago

I first saw this film in the 1960's when it was shown on television for the first time -- I was probably about 12 -- and was very impressed with it, even though all we had at home at that point was a black and white TV. I ended up reading first the Reader's Digest condensed book version of the novel (we had it at home) and then read the full version out of the local library.

It seems to me that there were two scenes in the version I saw on TV that have vanished due to TV edits and probably no longer exist. One of them is the scene you describe. Possibly, as you say, I remember it from the novel and only think it was in the film. I'm pretty sure the scene existed in the film though, because why create that room with the bathtubs and canvas covers if not to include the death of the nun by stabbing?

But there is another scene I'd swear was in the movie originally. Later on, during World War II, Sister Luke hides a member of the Belgian Resistance movement in a hospital room while the Nazi soldiers are in the hospital. She has the door sealed and hooks up a fumigating machine of the type used to disinfect a hospital room where a tuberculosis patient has been treated, only she puts just water in the machine without the disinfectant chemical. When the Nazis want to search the sealed room, she tells them fine, but it's being disinfected from a former tuberculosis patient who was in there and fear of infection with TB is enough to convince them to leave the room alone. The young man from the resistance is thus saved, but it is a clear act of deception and disobedience.

I'd swear that scene was in the movie.

A lot of classic films were butchered by trimming to fit in to TV time slots over the intervening years and the deleted scenes have been lost forever. If that is happened here, I think it's a crying shame. This film is just too good to have parts of it vanish for good.

[–] sandfleas2008 15 years ago

Thanks Todd--I'm with you on this one! That fumigating scene is very familiar to me too--can see it quite clearly in my mind's eye, but then again maybe we are both remembering the book in black-and-white, lol. It's been some time since I read it, but now that you mention it I do remember the incident. Wouldn't be at all surprised if it existed on film & is now gone, though I certainly would be as disappointed as yourself. Thanks for the input.

The process of getting there is the quality of being there

[–] moviemusicfan 15 years ago

Hi Todd--Thanks for your input on the sanatarium stabbing. Ever since I discovered this thread, I've been bothered by the synopsis of that scene, especially since I never read the book. So, while I couldn't recall the scene off the top of my head, I had already noted that the baths scene seems to call for a follow-up scene that isn't there. And now I have a strong feeling I did see that follow-up scene.

The hospital rescue scene is another I don't remember, but I'll post again if it starts ringing any bells in my brain.

And I agree with you that the loss of deleted scenes is shameful, especially from movies such as this one.

[–] mrshvd3 15 years ago

I'm in the process of watching the movie again on DVD. I wore out two copies on video. I've never seen the scenes being discussed on this thread on the commercial video or the DVD, but do know them from the book.

I'm normally not good at reading a book and then seeing the movie, or vice versa; I tend to try too hard to find the one in the other. But this is one book you really should read. It's been out of print for years, but most public libraries still have copies on their shelves. Kathryn Hulme wrote in wonderful detail, and the movie was well adapted from the book; so well, in fact, that you can take the cast of the movie and visualize them throughout the book, including in those scenes that were either edited out years ago or (more often) were never in the film, but were in the book.

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[–] ccoutroulos 13 years ago

I just watched the sanitarium sequence again on my copy of the DVD.

For the following reason, I find it difficult to believe the stabbing scene could ever have been in the film.

The "Archangel" scene, ending with Sister Marie (the nun who is stabbed in the book) telling Sister Luke that she "probably would have done the same thing," dissolves into the scene where Sister Luke does her culpa with Mother Christophe (a wonderful scene that expands considerably on its treatment in the book, where we are told of Sister Luke's self-accusations, but not of Mother Christophe's reassuring and supportive remarks). At the end of this scene, Mother Christophe tells Sister Luke that, with God's help, she will be able to make her final vows, after which there is another dissolve to the scene where Sister Luke, now back at the mother house, does exactly that. It would have required some mighty fancy editing to remove another scene from that sequence.

[–] bielbyd-1 9 years ago

This thread is fascinating because while I cannot speak to the sanitarium sequence, there are other scenes I do recall seeing when the film was released in 1959 that are no longer in the DVD version. One takes place in the scene where Gabrielle, as a newly-admitted postulant, is kneeling to pray in chapel with the other postulants overlooking the entire community. While looking around instead of keeping her eyes down to pray, she observes a nun (who I seem to recall being a novice), faint; this nun is then carried out by two other nuns. Another scene takes place the night before investiture, when Gabrielle will become a novice. Gabrielle is in her sleeping cell, readying for the next day, and it is time to divest herself of an object that will remind her of her past. The camera focuses on a basket being thrust through the curtains surrounding the cell, and in it Gabrielle hesitantly drops Jean's pen. The final deleted scene takes place after Sr. Luke is back in Europe; WWII is raging and she is working at the hospital near the Holland border. Another poster describes the deception in hospital room, and as I recall, this is followed by an impromptu confession in the adjoining lab room by Sr. Luke to the hospital's resident priest. In the DVD version of the film, all you see is the priest exiting the lab room with Sr. Luke kneeling at the lab table.

The New York Times review from 1959 lists the film's running time as 2 hours and 29 minutes, the same as the DVD version, so somehow there must have been a director's cut version circulating in 1959. If so, it would be terrific if Warner Bros. would include the deleted scenes as a special feature on a reissued version of the DVD.

[–] joedonato234 13 years ago

I've never read the book, but saw this film 2 or 3 times back in the day on tv. Decades later I saw it on VHS and was confused because I thought I remembered a suspenseful moment with the Nazis. Tod's description brought back in detail the scene I was trying to remember. However, I never saw the scene in the tub room. Someone should do some research on the film's original running time from reviews in 1959.

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Divtal-1 15 years ago

Wow, I'm going to have to read Hulme's book. I saw the film on first release, I've seen it on TV, I had the VHS (which stretched with use), and I have the DVD. I don't recall, ever, having seen a stabbing scene in the sanitarium, or the room-disinfecting scene in the hospital.

There are, of course, the scuffle with the "Archangel," in the sanitarium, and the bludgeoning of the sister in the Congo hospital. Are those events detailed in the book?

[–] mrshvd3 15 years ago

There are, of course, the scuffle with the "Archangel," in the sanitarium, and the bludgeoning of the sister in the Congo hospital. Are those events detailed in the book?

Yes, both of those scenes are taken from the book. I'm re-reading the book now, hadn't read it in years, and loving it all over again. It goes into greater detail than the movie, of course (you'll love "The Abbess" in the sanitarium; her character wasn't in the film). But the movie represents the book beautifully, even with its differences.

...One Nation, UNDER GOD...

[–] ccoutroulos 13 years ago

I have just been reading the Life Magazine article, written in 1959, the year of the film's release.

See http://books.google.com/books?id=gkkEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA141&dq=The+Nun's+Story&hl=en#v=onepage&q=The%20Nun's%20Story&f=false

The article says that the real Sister Luke (or equivalent) and author Kathryn Hulme first saw an uncut version of the film that ran nearly four hours and then saw it again three times afterwards "in various versions." Evidently, the film was cut down (apparently more than once) soon after (or perhaps even before) being released and before being televised. I suppose it's quite likely that the two scenes mentioned were included in the movie after all. (Incidentally, in the book, the stabbing scene does not occur in the bath house, but in the dormitory.)

[–] Molly-31 13 years ago

By the way, the part about the inmate ripping the canvas cover off the tub is from the book (not film) Valley of the Dolls. Neely does it when she's in the sanitarium to recover from addiction to "dolls" (prescription sleeping pills).

In The Nun's Story we never find out how the murderer got out to commit her sickening deed. And no, this isn't in the film at all, but Hulme writes very filmic prose.

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